Who is the most important person in the organization?

Everyone.

In his book, Teaching the Elephant to Dance, author Jim Belasco tells the story of Dr. Denton Cooley, the famous heart surgeon.

One day Belasco followed Dr. Cooley on his rounds and en route to the operating room, saw the surgeon stop and talk to a man mopping the hallway. The two men conversed for nearly ten minutes before Dr. Cooley dashed into the operating room. Curious, Belasco walked over to the man with the mop and said, “That was a long conversation.”

The man replied, “Yes, Dr. Cooley and I talk quite often.”

Then Belasco asked, “what exactly do you do at the hospital?”

The man replied, “We save lives.”

In the best organizations, there is no such thing as them and us; there is only “we”—all of us working together. In the big picture everyone has a unique role to fill…everyone has a piece to the puzzle…everyone, including and perhaps especially you, makes a difference.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. Stay hungry. Stay foolish. -Steve jobs